Role of data science is transforming curriculum designing in the digital era

By Mr. Arun Prakash M. Founder and CEO of GUVI Geek Networks: Global education is changing rapidly on the back of modern pedagogies and practices. The most significant aspect of this paradigm shift is not limited to developing instructional strategies but through implementing digital learning.

Aligning new-age technologies in the digital world has proved to be a marvellous decision, and this comprehensive approach has been revolutionary in aligning with student’s interests and attention span.

But EdTech is also witnessing rapid change. What started as implementing internet-based learning through audio-visual measures is being perfected to accommodate new pedagogies.

Sectoral stakeholders increasingly depend on futuristic technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science to streamline education across levels.

The era-appropriate objective of this fundamental change is targeted at modernising the curriculums, redesigning them to align with employment opportunities and offering holistic coverage to the primary stakeholders — students.

Since 2000, the online education sector has registered a staggering 900% growth. India’s National Educational Policy (NEP) has also addressed this significant growth of online learning.

Prominent educationists have also been vocal about integrating big data and data analysis to have a holistic outlook on student requirements, immersive learning processes, performance and teacher training.

Coupled with the growth of the Big Data Technology market in India, which is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 35.1% till 2028, the popular notion is to align these data and education to ensure a comprehensive transformation of curriculum designing in the digital era.

Educational value creation

If one takes a close look at the Indian curriculums, it soon becomes visible that the content is over 3 centuries old and has been a reflection of colonial stigma. This age-old curriculum was designed with 40 hours of learning in mind across disciplines with the end goal of providing employees in factories or similar income-generating sources.

This school of thought, however, is no longer applicable in modern Indian society, which requires skilled workforces across sectors.

Coupled with this, the attention span of today’s youth has shrunk to 5-7 minutes, and they prefer swipe-based learning over hours of turning pages in textbooks. This is where the role of data science has been invaluable in transforming the overall curriculums.

The usage of data science to transform curriculums is based on the requirement of creating value. Educational institutions, from schools to universities generate massive amounts of data pertaining to student enrollment, demographics, discipline preference, quarterly or annual performance and many more.

Furthermore, the usage of new-age technologies such as Learning Management Systems (LMS), AI, AR AND VR both inside classrooms and virtually generate significant data which can be constructively interpreted to design the ideal curriculums to ensure optimal learning solutions and an immersive experience.

For example, data can interpret a group of students’ learning difficulties in a complex discipline for a similarly complex language.

When interpreted, this data can be meaningfully compiled to redesign the curriculum to maximize the learning process, aligned to students’ concurrent capabilities that can address frustration, irritation or boredom.

Data science can also be implemented through LMS to interpret test scores or assignments, enabling authorities to come up with constructive SWOT analysis and appropriate measures to address it in the curriculums.

Implementing modern pedagogy

Integrating data science to comprehensively transform curriculums is already being undertaken by the edtech industry. However, governmental initiatives will act as a critical enabler of this process.

Support from worldwide governments will help this process become mainstream and will further boost the development of modern pedagogies. For now, the edtech industry is leading this charge to transform curriculums that are more efficient and performance-oriented.

The usage of data science to develop new curriculums has led the edtech sector to introduce personalised learning. By interpreting big data on learners, including performances, time or difficulties, the edtech industry is ensuring the customised delivery of learning materials strategically and more efficiently.

Through data science, industry stakeholders are developing capabilities to achieve deep invaluable insights into learning styles, gaps, and requirements to combine all of these to create data-driven curriculums that are not only easy to learn but capture the attention span of students.

Data science is also enabling operators in the space to assess learners’ engagement rate and the final outcome, an aspect that is being reflected by new-age course design through meaningful curriculums.

Data science has also been a powerful tool to overcome linguistic barriers of students and optimize the overall learning process by filling in previously unaddressed gaps.

Transforming curriculum through data science is a gradual process and it will take time before it is made mainstream and accepted by educationists and governments.

However, the educational space is evolving rapidly, and while the inclusion of new-age digital technologies was unheard of even two decades ago — it has been able to take the centre seat of attention.

In India, the NEP has been one of the driving forces in integrating new-age technologies and transforming curriculums, however, more governmental initiatives are required to supplement this push, ensuring a comprehensive shift towards a new-age educational landscape.

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